At their next meeting on June 21, the Healdsburg City Council will consider a request from SD Media Productions for the use of the West Plaza Parking Lot for a proposed three-day Sonoma County food and wine tasting event in 2022.
The council will also hold a public hearing in relation to weed abatement and will consider adopting a resolution ordering the abatement of weeds on properties that have not cut their weeds. The city council will also discuss an expenditure plan for approximately $2.8 million in revenue from the Federal Rescue Act.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be held via Zoom.
Reports and presentations
The Russian River Water Authority will kick off Monday’s evening with a presentation on their work.
Healdsburg City Manager Jeff Kay will provide an update on COVID-19 and the drought and current water supply.
Public hearings
The weed abatement public hearing will be held during the council’s Monday meeting.
The city’s annual weed abatement program, which is overseen by Healdsburg Fire Marshal Division Chief Linda Collister, plays an important role in reducing wildfire fuel from properties and large parcels across the city.
Typically the weed abatement process starts in early April.
“We have a really aggressive weed abatement program,” Collister told SoCoNews in 2019. “In the city of Healdsburg we have an ordinance, so we start in April and go around and look at all of the properties and mark every parcel that needs weed abatement.”
A software called the Collector App is used to register and create a list of all of the properties within Healdsburg city limits that have not completed weed abatement work.
The list of properties is then sent to the city council and the property is declared a nuisance and a date is set for a public hearing.
Collister then sends a letter to each property, explaining the nuisance and stating that they have 30 days to get rid of the weeds.
The weed abatement team then completes a follow-up inspection of all of the properties listed during the first week of June. The public hearing is then held — at which point property owners can comment or contest the nuisance declaration — followed by a second inspection.
If the brush still isn’t abated after the 30 days, the abatement team will force abate the property and the property owner will be billed for their services and if the owner does not make the payment, a lien is placed on the property.
This year’s re-inspection list has 13 properties.
New business
A big topic in the ‘new business’ section of the agenda is the consideration to approve a request to use West Plaza Parking lot for a three-day food and wine tasting event.
The event organizers, SD Media Productions, first requested the use of Plaza Park for the upscale event. However, after resident pushback and a 5-2 vote from the Healdsburg Parks and Recreation Commission to deny the request, the applicant withdrew their application to use the Plaza and surrounding streets.
On June 7, the applicant submitted a new application that proposes to host the event in the West Plaza Parking Lot.
Parks and recreation commissioners were leery about approving the Plaza Park request because of the waivers to the city’s special events policy needed for the event, the event’s impact on the Plaza and the precedent the event would set of allowing a for-profit event in the Plaza.
The proposed event — which is being called the Sonoma County Wine & Food Experience — is a weekend-long event with fine food, art and wine from local wineries, eateries and art galleries at satellite venues across Healdsburg.
Part of the event, called the Grand Tasting, would take place in the West Plaza Parking Lot.
Corresponding events, like food demonstrations and wine tastings, would be held at various other locations throughout the city in conjunction with the Grand Tasting, so it’s estimated that around 750 people would be at the Grand Tasting event locations as attendees migrate from one event location to another.
The Grand Tasting is proposed to take place on Saturday, May 21, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. — an hour after the originally proposed end time — and would feature wine seminars with local wineries, cooking demonstrations with food sourced from local farms, wine and food sampling, live music and farmers market vendors.
North Street would be closed for the event between Vine Street and Foss Street on May 21 from 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
As with the previous application, in order for the event to proceed as proposed, the council would have to waive portions of the city’s municipal code and special events policy.
Federal Rescue Act funding
In the last agenda item of the evening, city staff will ask council members for direction and feedback on an expenditure plan for approximately $2.8 million received from the Federal Rescue Act. Staff intends to use the direction to bring back a more detailed expenditure plan for council consideration.
How to view the meeting
Folks can watch the meeting here or on the city’s Facebook page.
To submit a public comment during the meeting, click the “hand” icon and wait for your name to be called. Speakers will have three minutes to make their public comment.
To view the agenda, click here.
